Dozens of Americans will no doubt be dismayed to learn Mitt Romney has withdrawn his name from consideration for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Mr. Romney, who surprised everyone by suggesting three weeks ago that he was considering a third bid for the presidency, surprised them again Friday when he announced he had changed his mind again and would not run.

His decision was made public in the same manner as his initial declaration of interest: rather than directly alert the press, his non-campaign leaked the information after he’d notified a group of supporters by phone. His reason for dropping out – before he’d even dropped in – was somewhat curious.

If he’d decided to run, he said, he was certain he could have won. His finance team assured him the money could be raised. His “field leadership” was ready to go. Poll numbers were encouraging, and Republican reaction was “heartening.”

Still, “after putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee.”

“I believe that one of our next generation of Republican leaders, one who may not be as well known as I am today, one who has not yet taken their message across the country, one who is just getting started, may well emerge as being better able to defeat the Democrat nominee. In fact, I expect and hope that to be the case.”

Perhaps Mr. Romney intended his withdrawal to be viewed as a noble act, a personal sacrifice taken in the interests of the next generation. But it rings hollow. If he thinks he’s the best man and that he could have won, why is he withdrawing in favour of lesser candidates with (presumably) a weaker chance of victory? It’s like the next-in-line to be chairman of a bank dropping out in favour of the kid in the mailroom who no one has ever heard of. “Go for it kid. Give Hillary a run for her money. You can do it.”

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GettyImagesUS Senator Marco Rubio

The reality is that Mr. Romney’s return to the ring hadn’t been greeted with tears of joy by Republicans. He ran an awkward, troubled campaign against president Barack Obama in 2012, yet claimed he still thought he had it in the bag as late as election night. He won the nomination after a brutal slog by outlasting a grab-bag of accident-prone no-hopers and 15-minute wonders, including a pizza salesman who wanted to bring back the gold standard and a congresswoman who thought gaydom could be cured. His immigration platform urged Illegal migrants to “self-deport” themselves.

In calling for a new generation of nominees, he took a not-so-veiled shot at Mr. Bush, who is 61 and hardly a fresh new face. The two men were competing for acceptance as the preferred candidate of the party establishment, and his soundings must have indicated Mr. Bush had the stronger support. Yet “strength” in this instance is relative: Republicans may prefer Mr. Bush to Mr. Romney, but that doesn’t mean they’re wild about Mr. Bush. He’d be the third member of the clan seeking to enter the White House, he’s been out of office for seven years, he’s a bit of a policy wonk with a wooden approach, and he has business ties that could prove problematic. The main reason Mr. Romney’s candidacy drew any interest may have been the jolt of controversy it introduced to the dull prospect of a Bush campaign.

With Romney out, the party is forced back to the uninspiring cast that had been in the process of assembling for a run: Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Chris Christie. It’s not an inspiring group. Mr. Paul’s libertarian views give him limited upside; Mr. Perry’s 2012 bid was best-known for his inability to remember which Washington departments he intended to close, and Mr. Rubio remains a junior senator with limited experience and only three years in Washington, a resume that sounds much like the thin background Mr. Obama brought to the job. Mr, Christie, once viewed as a rising star, is no longer popular even in his own state, where 60% of registered voters don’t think he’d make a good president.

There’s always the chance of a dark horse, of course. Some dynamic, charismatic figure waiting in the wings. Republicans better hope so. Otherwise it’s going to be a very long two years until election day arrives.

Republican Mitt Romney, after a three-week flirtation with another run for president, said definitively on Friday that he will not seek the White House in 2016.

The Republican Party’s 2012 nominee plans to tell supporters about his plans to pass on another national campaign during a conference call. He first let his staff know in a separate call that he was out of the race.

“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney said in a statement, which he planned to read to supporters on the call.

As Romney sounded out his former team about putting together a new national campaign, he discovered that several of his past fundraisers had already made plans for 2016 and were committed to supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the brother and son of former presidents.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh,Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will spend months trying to wrap up big donors for a run at the Republican nomination.

Several key former Romney donors told The Associated Press this week that in Bush they see someone who can successfully serve as president, as they believe Romney could. But they also think Bush has the personality and senior staff needed to win the White House, something the former Massachusetts governor could not bring together in his two previous presidential campaigns.

Bush praised Romney for “serving” the Republican party and their nation “for many years” in a statement posted on Facebook Friday.

“There are few people who have worked harder to elect Republicans across the country than he has,” Bush wrote. “Though I’m sure today’s decision was not easy, I know that Mitt Romney will never stop advocating for renewing America’s promise through upward mobility, encouraging free enterprise and strengthening our national defense.”

The former governor of Massachusetts had jumped back into the presidential discussion on Jan. 10, when he surprised a small group of former donors at a meeting in New York by telling them he was eyeing a third run for the White House.

It was a monumental change for Romney, who since losing the 2012 election to President Barack Obama had repeatedly told all who asked that his career in politics was over and that he would not again run for president.

In the days since that meeting in New York, which caught several in attendance off-guard, Romney made calls to former fundraisers, staff and supporters, and gave three public speeches in which he outlined his potential vision for another campaign.

“I’m thinking about how I can help the country,” he told hundreds of students Wednesday night at Mississippi State University.

In that speech, and what amounted to a campaign stop a few hours before at a barbeque restaurant, Romney sounded every bit like a politician preparing to run for president.

“We need to restore opportunity, particularly for the middle class,” Romney said. “You deserve a job that can repay all you’ve spent and borrowed to go to college.”

Obama is barred from a third term, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is the presumed Democratic frontrunner. The Republican race remains wide open.

The exit of Romney from the campaign most immediately benefits the other favourites of the party’s establishment wing, including Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The more conservative side of the field is largely unchanged, with a group of candidates that will likely include Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Romney’s aides had acknowledged a third campaign would have been more difficult than his second, but insisted he would have had the necessary financial support, noting his supporters raised more than $1 billion during the 2012 election.

If he would’ve run, Romney would have been attempting something not achieved in American politics since the 1968 election of Richard Nixon: a presidential nominee who lost a general election and then came back to win. Nixon, who lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960, also remains the last nominee to lose as a major party’s standard-bearer and then win nomination again. Such a feat had been common before the modern nominating system of primaries and caucuses came into being.

After six years of being shut out of the federal government by Barack Obama, Republicans have nothing to warm them but their unslaked desire for power. They are grimly determined that if they win the 2016 presidential election, they will win it in their own way, with their own kind of president, a conservative’s conservative. Ideology is much on their minds, perhaps more now than ever.

The drive to choose their candidate has recently begun in earnest, though in a weirdly unofficial way. Only a few candidates have said they will run but several are moving in that direction. On Dec. 16, Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, announced that he intended to explore the possibility of entering the race.

If that sounds half-hearted, it nevertheless ignited a flurry of activity in his competitors. Mitt Romney picked up the phone and began asking donors for serious campaign money. Despite his uninspired performance against Obama in 2012, he found many of them enthusiastic. Even the presumptive Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, suddenly began hiring campaign organizers and TV experts. This means the presidential campaign will last close to two years, but Americans believe they can’t have too much politics.

Republican candidates, while running in the primaries, will be required to twist and writhe while answering the demands of ultra-conservative Republicans. This means that Mitt (“I’ve been as consistent as human beings can be”) Romney will have everyone’s attention. In 2012 he had to reverse most of the views he’d previously held, downplaying his major legislative achievement, the pioneering public health plan he introduced as governor of Massachusetts. For weeks he joined a travelling chorus line of candidates — the eccentric Michele Bachmann, the tongue-tied Rick Perry, the wily Newt Gingrich, etc., all of whom proved to their satisfaction that they were really conservative and Romney was not.

Jeb Bush was considered a conservative Florida governor but today he’s perhaps not conservative enough. He started out showing more concern for land developers than landscape but he set in place a $2-billion program to save the Everglades. Once he said that the purpose of jail was punishment and nothing else. Now, having learned that jails create hardened criminals, he favours prison reform. He opposed single-sex marriage but now says that gays and lesbians who make lifetime commitments deserve respect.

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He once thought that illegal immigrants from Mexico were law-breakers. Last spring he spoke with sympathy of those who cross the border because they can see no other way to provide for their families. Using the compassionate language that’s become his habit, he said: “Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love.” He wants to help them achieve citizenship, a dangerous position among Republicans today, and the reverse of what Romney advocated in 2012.

It will seem to many that Bush has been planning for years to attract centrist voters for his presidential campaign. Maybe he’s quietly becoming a RINO, or Republican In Name Only. But Bush’s admirers spin that idea into a virtue. Unlike Romney, they patiently explain, Bush doesn’t flip-flop. He learns. More important, he evolves. He’s his own man, they say, and for sure a conservative. He has them well coached.

If those two bright and conscientious politicians go mäno ä mäno, Americans may watch an intelligent debate on real issues

If Republicans read modern history they must be startled to learn that Arthur Vandenberg, an influential Republican senator from Michigan, was a determined isolationist in the 1930s who judged Franklin Roosevelt dangerous because he supported Britain. But Pearl Harbor changed Vandenberg’s mind and from 1941 to his death in 1951 he deftly managed a bipartisan foreign policy, standing behind Harry Truman on the Marshall Plan and NATO. “Politics stops at the water’s edge,” he preached, which sounds like something from two centuries ago. Today Republican senators believe politics never stops. Few remember that in the 1950s Senator Lyndon Johnson put his Democratic strength behind the foreign policy of the Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower.

Perhaps by the summer of 2016 the nomination will come down to a two-man final, Bush v. Romney. On Tuesday a poll reported that Republicans in Iowa (where the primary season traditionally begins with the Iowa caucuses, a year from now) place Romney first (21%) among all likely candidates and Bush second (14%). If those two bright and conscientious politicians go mäno ä mäno, Americans may watch an intelligent debate on real issues. Should that happen the Republican Party could find a route back to sanity and the way it was before it drowned in a sea of ideology.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/17/robert-fulford-the-joy-of-bush-vs-romney/feed/0stdbushromneyBetsy Woodruff: Those most excited about a third Romney run are the people who desperately want him to failhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/16/betsy-woodruff-those-most-excited-about-a-third-romney-run-are-the-people-who-desperately-want-him-to-fail/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/16/betsy-woodruff-those-most-excited-about-a-third-romney-run-are-the-people-who-desperately-want-him-to-fail/#commentsFri, 16 Jan 2015 12:00:06 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=571680

The only people excited about Mitt Romney running for president in 2016 are excited because they think he will fail.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the Netflix star and former Republican presidential nominee told a “senior Republican” that he “almost certainly will” launch a third presidential bid. Among Romney’s fellow GOP compatriots, this news engendered a collective gulp.

Of course, it’s possible that lots of Republicans are thrilled about potentially renominating the gloriously-coiffed former Massachusetts governor. But those people — at least thus far — have kept pretty darn mum.

As a quick preface, there are exceptions. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, seemed genuinely pleased about a third Romney bid; the Washington Post reported that he’s already promised to back Romney if he formally enters the race. And Sen. Orrin Hatch, also of Utah, told ABC that he’d like “very badly” to see Romney run again and that he thinks he would win if he did.

But beyond the Beehive State, Republican reactions were one collective cringe. The Hill compiled responses from top Congressional Republicans, and the results aren’t pretty.

Sen. John Hoeven, who supported Romney in 2012? “I’m going to reserve judgment.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa icon: “I haven’t had a conversation with Mitt Romney since the last time he was in Iowa in 2012, so I wouldn’t know his motivations.”

Sen. Rob Portman, Romney’s debate sparring partner: “Who?”

House Speaker John Boehner helpfully pointed out that “there will be a lot of candidates.” Former megadonor Randy Kendrick told the Daily Caller that he “will work early and tirelessly now to make sure he is not our nominee again.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board called his political profile “protean” and charged that his 2012 team was “notable for its mediocrities.” And, most tellingly, a guy who got a Romney “R” face tattoo told BuzzFeed he won’t be backing him this time around.

So that covers all the bases. Donors, members of Congress, RINO #surrendercaucus editorial boards, people with poor judgment — they all come together to share some nose-wrinkling over the possibility of a third Romney bid.

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Steve Deace, an influential Iowa conservative radio host, said he’s overjoyed about Romney’s plans. He said he expects Romney and Bush to tear into each other. And given their tetchy personal history, it could theoretically get ugly.

“This is going to be corporatist on corporatist crime,” Deace said. “And whenever corporatist blood gets spilled, we all win.”

“[Romney’s] going to provide a lot of free opposition research for conservatives out there,” Deace added. “It’s the best of both worlds. He will go nowhere.”

“A three-way battle for the soul of the [establishment] GOP? For its money, consultants, and votes?” he wrote. “Good news, we think.”

Brent Bozell of ForAmerica, a conservative group that was an early backer of Eric Cantor’s successful primary challenger, falls in the same camp.

“If you recall the Lurch character from the Adams family who’d just groan all the time, that’s how I feel,” he said. “It’s like Groundhog Day. It’s 6 a.m.”

He sees the same upside as others, though. Romney, Bush and Christie will all compete for backing from the Chamber of Commerce and other big-business interests, he argued. In the process they’ll damage whomever finally emerges as moderate Republicans’ favourite, forced to invest their finite resources in their own circular firing squad instead of in targeting grassroots favourites like Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

Republican presidential primary candidates usually focus on courting the conservative movement voters who show up in outsize numbers on primary day. They tack to the right, and then the nominee inevitably tacks back to the middle. But Bush, Christie, and Romney share a similar base: moderate, business-oriented Republicans who may find issues like Common Core and immigration less galvanizing than your typical Tea Partier does. Conservatives hope it will be tough for these candidates to simultaneously battle for the Chamber’s backing and for the support of red-meat Iowa caucus-goers. So there’s an element of schadenfreude in their glee.

But putting aside the delight of those vultures, one thing’s for sure: Romney 2016 has a major happiness gap.

You might not have noticed that Mitt Romney is mulling a third bid for the White House. It didn’t get a lot of headlines. Not big ones, anyway.

Mr. Romney let slip his plan on Friday, telling a “private” meeting of 30 former supporters in New York he was “thinking about it.” Ponder that for a moment: do you call together 30 wealthy, time-pressed people to mention that you’re batting around the idea of running for president if it’s just one of those passing fancies that occurs during a commercial break while you’re watching “The Big Bang Theory“? Probably not. So it’s fair to guess that Mr. Romney must be thinking pretty hard, and wanted the word to get out.

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As it did.“Mitt is considering because he thinks he can make a difference,” Spencer Zwick, a Romney advisor who was at the meeting, told the Wall Street Journal.

There’s a reason for the timing of Mr. Romney’s disclosure, two years before the next president takes office. Jeb Bush, brother of George W. and son of George H.W., both previous presidents, revealed last month that he is actively considering his own run for the Republican nomination. Mr. Bush will spend the next few months exploring whether he can build enough support, and attract enough money, to make a serious run at the nomination. Since Mr. Bush and Mr. Romney both come from the moderate, establishment wing of the party, it’s unlikely they could both build the sort of war chest needed to mount a credible bid. The deep-pocketed contributors needed to write the cheques would be loath to throw money at two moderates duking it out for the middle ground.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh,Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will spend months trying to wrap up big donors for a run at the Republican nomination.

So, once Mr. Bush made known his plan to enter the ring, Mr. Romney had to act quickly. Though he’d insisted previously that his 2012 effort was his last, something must have changed his mind. Perhaps it was the less-than-stellar caliber of the other potential candidates. Or maybe he figured that if a third Bush could seek the job, there was no reason he couldn’t make a third try of his own. Or maybe he’s just rich and bored and thinks he’s learned enough from his previous two bids to take another stab at it.

The Democrats once ran a losing candidate in two successive elections — Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956. He lost both times to Dwight D. Eisenhower. This would be Mr. Romney’s third try. He lost the nomination in 2008 to Sen. John McCain. He won the 2012 nomination but lost to President Barack Obama.

If you want to make the point that the Democrats are running a tired old retread, you should come up with something better than a retread of your own.

He could be forgiven for thinking he was a victim of bad timing in 2012. Though he won the nomination, the battering he took in the process left him with wounds that could be easily exploited by the Democrats. Most damaging was his effort to placate the sudden clout of the Tea Party, the right-wing, no-compromise, burn-down Washington faction that preferred ideological purity over any serious shot at victory. The effort undermined his credibility and damaged his standing with moderates, while never winning much support from the tea partiers.

In any “normal” election year – any time over the past 25 years – he might have run as a very rich but fairly reasonable conservative with a credible record, up against an untried academic whose political experience consisted mainly of eight years in the Illinois senate, a state with a well-documented record for political corruption and economic dysfunction. But then the Tea Party came along and messed everything up.

President Barack Obama can register the same complaint, of course. If not for the tactics of a relatively small group of Republican diehards, he might have had a Congress open to something other than a single-minded determination to bring the governing process to a screeching halt. If Mr. Romney had won in 2012, he’d have faced the same challenge that fiercely vexed Republican House Speaker John Boehner over the past four year: what do you do with people who can’t say anything but “No!”?

So maybe Mr. Romney figures that, the party establishment having succeeded in muzzling the worst pooches in the Tea Party dog pound, his odds are better this time. Mr. Bush’s positions on education and immigration make many Republicans decidedly nervous. Two Bushes in the White House was plenty for many people, even if Jeb is supposed to be more of an intellectual than his older brother. And it would make it difficult for Republicans to question the dynastic ambitions and sense of entitlement of the Clinton family if they’re running a dauphin of their own.

Maybe Mr. Romney is right. Or he could just make people wonder about the party itself. How dynamic can the GOP claim to be when Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are the best they can do? Not that Hillary Clinton is a breath of fresh air, but if you want to make the point that the Democrats are running a tired old retread, you should come up with something better than a retread of your own.

In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama trounced Republican candidate Mitt Romney, despite his record of accomplishments as a governor, business executive and CEO of the Salt Lake City Olympics. In one of the poorest showings in modern American politics, the Republicans lost in almost every demographic — women, ethnic communities, young people and swing states — leading to an existential identity crisis. Recently, however, they have emerged with renewed strength, buoyed by a resounding win in last month’s midterm elections.

If past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour, the Liberal wins in four Canadian provincial elections since Justin Trudeau became leader of the federal party, doesn’t bode well for the Conservative’s prospects in the 2015 federal election. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has consulted GOP operatives in the past, so what can Canadian conservatives learn from Republicans?

Fix their image problem

At a Republican retreat in 2012, former House majority leader Eric Cantor invited the CEO of Domino’s Pizza to give a presentation, titled “Turning It Around.” Cantor, who was cited in a New Yorker profile for his “strategic intelligence and a knack for political positioning,” recognized that the challenge was public relations, not public policy.

The Republican party is seen as the “party of no,” says former Florida governor and 2016 presidential contender Jeb Bush. “Way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker.” The GOP’s image is at an all-time low, with Pew Research saying that Republicans are “out of touch,” “not open to change” and “too extreme,” with women being “barely receptive” to their policies and positions.

With 98% of reasoning being unconscious and reflexive, the GOP hasn’t created an emotionally attractive narrative for its vision of government. “Through the stories we tell, we come to understand who we are and what we are to do,” wrote Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. “Stories work by indirection: Not by telling us what to believe but by helping us to experience emotionally and imaginatively what it is like to embody particular ideas.” Dreher cites the dramatic increase in support for gay marriage over the past two decades, due to its emotional appeal.

No Republican did this more successfully than Ronald Reagan. “He just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was, ‘we want clarity, we want optimism’,” said President Obama in 2008. These same emotions would be portrayed in Reagan’s “Morning in America” re-election ad, which would lead to him taking 49 states and 59% of the popular vote, and ending his presidency with an approval rating of more than 55%.

On this side of the border, Trudeau’s personal style has made an emotional appeal to voters

Reagan’s success reveals that principles and warmth aren’t mutually exclusive. “Ronnie improves the stodgy image of the Republican profile,” reads a profile in Esquire. “He gave their message across with a sugar coating. You don’t notice the castor oil in all that orange juice.”

On this side of the border, Trudeau’s personal style has made an emotional appeal to voters. “He has reconsidered their attitude toward federal politics,” wrote historian Richard Gwyn in The Walrus, “not by converting them to liberalism, but by changing their attitude to politics itself.” Trudeau recognized this early on, stating that his father was “extremely strong intellectually and academically, but it left him a little short on some of the interpersonal skills, the emotional intelligence.”

Attempting to appear authentic, but not over-polished, Trudeau shrewdly dropped the f-bomb at boxing match last spring, in what the National Post’s Robyn Urback called, “less a verbal slip than a strategically planned trial balloon.” As Groucho Marx humorously quipped, “Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Develop policies that resonate with voters

Limited government, free markets and economic liberty are abstract concepts that often fall on deaf ears. Recognizing the policy vacuum, a new age of young scholars billed as the “reform conservatives” have “captured their party’s imagination,” as The New York Times put it. Presidential aspirants Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan have championed their policies of social mobility, reforming public unions, prisons and the tax code, and allowing for greater school choice.

Matching policy with the public mood can propel a candidate to new heights. Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform act was successful because many Americans “resented the culture of welfare and the culture of dependency,” argued a former Clinton adviser. The law was an enormous success, moving 4.7 million Americans to self-reliance within three years, and halving the caseload five years later.

For the past decade, there has been a public backlash against union overreach, with a recent poll saying that only 20% of Canadians trust union leaders. Public-sector unions have tied the hands of politicians by giving their members jobs for life, maintained the status quo in industries that require reinvention and held the public hostage with strikes. In Toronto, 89% of the nearly $1 billion police budget goes to salary and benefits, with more than a third of officers making a six-figure salary. “They have very strong unions and nobody wants to take on the police,” said city councillor Mike Del Grande.

But Republican Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey have won re-election in traditionally Democratic states by crusading against union power. Christie, who stumped for Walker’s campaign, praised Walker for reforming collective-bargaining laws while allowing “public workers the freedom to choose whether to belong to a union.” The result was that both men have been catapulted into the 2016 presidential conversation.

Re-embrace compassionate conservatism

At the age of 16, Congressman Paul Ryan went to see his father, only to find out that he had succumbed to addiction. “Before I lost him to a heart attack, whisky had washed away some of the best parts of the man I knew,” wrote Ryan in his recent book, The Way Forward. Ryan speaks about a “common humanity” that has often been lost from the public perception of conservatives, and has endeavoured to soften the image of conservatism by sharing anecdotes, such as caring for his grandmother with Alzheimer’s, or volunteering at his church’s homeless shelter.

Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, has ditched his Tea Party robes, embraced bi-partisanship and produced a widely praised anti-poverty plan. “When you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter,” said one Republican governor, “he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor.”

Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesRepublican vice presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan attends a Victory rally at the Long Family Orchard Farm and Cider Mill August 24, 2012.

Revisiting a philosophy of “compassionate conservatism,” a term adopted by former U.S. president George W. Bush’s communications team, can present an alternative method for delivering social justice initiatives beyond government intervention, beginning with dispelling the myth of indifference for the poor (a UCLA study found that participants viewed conservatives as “somewhat heartless,” despite data indicating that conservative households give substantially more money to charity than liberal households).

In his 2006 book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Arthur C. Brooks questions the liberal philosophy of supporting government services instead of volunteering and donating money. “For many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal cheques,” which is built “not around altruism, but sanctimoniousness.” Brooks argues that the higher-taxes-for-services paradigm “confuses intentions for effective action,” disregarding whether the policies are efficient and sensible.

Charities, non-profits and social networks — what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of civil society — can fill the void, with the remarkable success of the ALS Association Ice Bucket challenge as a testament to this fact. The non-profit United Way of Canada exemplifies this grassroots effort by raising large amounts of money, creating pro bono private partnerships and, most notably, focusing on individual transformation rather than external band-aid solutions. “Rather than dramatize the problem we focus on the solution,” reads one of its press releases.

“The alternative to bureaucracy is not indifference,” George W. Bush said in 2000, “it is to put conservative values and conservative ideas into the thick of the fight for justice and opportunity.” This is a strategy that paid off for Bush, who captured 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, compared to Romney’s 27% just eight years later.

Employ symbolic conservatism

Say you’re running as a Republican when asked your stance on abortion. You’re undecided, but if you say you are pro-life, you risk media criticism and losing a considerable amount of female voters. If you say you are pro-abortion, you lose Evangelical supporters and the fundraising apparatus that comes with it. What do you do when talking about hot-button issues?

Look to Chris Christie. Christie is pro-life and anti-gay marriage, but has been twice elected governor in a blue state, most recently with a commanding 60.4% of the vote, and has favourable ratings from across the political spectrum. Christie vetoed legislation for state recognition of same-sex marriage and funding of Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports abortion.

David Stouck answers our RBC Taylor Prize questionnaire[caption id="attachment_142125" align="alignright" width="300"]<a href="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/david_stouck_high_res.jpeg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-142125" alt="Handout" src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/david_stouck_high_res.jpeg?w=300&quot; width="300" height="450" /></a> Handout[/caption]
<strong>The winner of the RBC Taylor Prize — formerly the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction — will be announced next Monday, March 10. In advance of next week’s ceremony, we’ve asked the five finalists for the $25,000 prize to answer a short questionnaire. Here’s David Stouck, author of <em>Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life</em>.</strong>
<strong>Q: What do you answer when someone asks, "What's your book about?"</strong>
A: I say it's a book about "everything," because Arthur Erickson had such a wide-ranging imagination that I not only had to learn about architecture but painting, music, literature, religious philosophy, landscaping, politics.
<strong>Q: Where did you write the majority of your book?</strong>
A: Mostly at home in my study in West Vancouver. But occasionally, working in an archive or conducting an interview, I would come across information that provided the answer to a question I had long puzzled over. I couldn't risk losing that and what I wrote down in the white heat of insight or inspiration often remained intact in the final version of the book.
<strong>Q: Do you listen to music while writing? If so, is there a song/album/artist you associate with your book?</strong>
A: I don't listen to anything while reading or writing because prose has its own musical cadences, but otherwise I surrounded myself with some of Erickson's favorite music -- classical and folk -- and with my own love of contemporary, from John Adams to Arcade Fire.[related_links /]
<strong>Q: What do you like to do when you aren't writing?</strong>
A: I was raised on a farm and that has imprinted a gardening instinct, so that's where I go when I close the study door.
<strong>Q: How do you know a subject deserves a book, rather than an article or essay?</strong>
A: A good question because I have often puzzled over essay or book? Early on, I was fascinated with the American writer Sherwood Anderson because his books were all experiments (of great value to Hemingway for example), but only a few of his stories are read today. There were already some books about Anderson, so I wrote 4 or 5 essays focussing specifically on his unique ways of writing. Instead of Anderson, I eventually wrote books about Ethel Wilson and Sinclair Ross, also experimental writers, but they were Canadian and their stories had not been told. That seemed more important.
<strong>Q: What's your worst habit as a writer?</strong>
A: <em>Arthur Erickson: An Architect's Life</em> was 40,000 words too long for my publisher. That was not the first time. Cutting always leaves orphaned references and a book with ghosts. But I find it hard no to go the distance in the first drafts.
<strong>Q: What's one work of non-fiction (it doesn't have to be a book) you'd give to a young writer to show them how it's done?</strong>
A: David Laskin's <em>The Family</em> is a fine work of non-fiction, combining wide research with a talent for vivid storytelling. In all his books Laskin pieces together like a master short story writer the fortunes of several characters who are loosely connected by time and circumstances. <em>The Children's Blizzard</em> is a stand out example; it connects several pioneer families in Nebraska whose children would die on the way home from school in a winter storm in 1888.
<strong>Q: What's one book you want to be buried with?</strong>
A: I privately published a history of my family's seven generations in the Niagara Peninsula, so I am going to echo Ethel Wilson who wrote a fictionally disguised family history titled the <em>Innocent Traveller</em> and asked to be cremated with a copy of that book along with her husband's love letters.
<strong>Q: What's the last great work of non-fiction you read, other than your fellow nominees?</strong>
A: Edmund de Waal's <em>The Hare with Amber Eyes</em> is very impressive. I would happily steal his talent if such a thing were possible!

But Christie knew that the “challenge to the gay marriage bill was purely symbolic, since the liberal state supreme court was certain to reinstate the law,” writes Samuel Goldman, a professor at George Washington University. “Christie dropped his opposition as soon as he could credibly claim that the court had forced his hand,” which “was inevitable in a state in which a considerable majority of voters, including Republicans, favour gay marriage.” And here comes the clincher: Christie knew that “symbolic conservatism is popular with more moderate voters, who want to express disapproval for gay marriage and abortion, but are uncomfortable with policies that seem intrusive or intolerant,” Goldman concludes.

Christie understands the “long-standing paradox: The American public is operationally liberal, but ideologically and symbolically conservative,” as professors Christopher Ellis and James Stimson have written. Ellis and Stimson argue that, although the majority of Americans seem to prefer self-identifying as conservative, they nevertheless express greater comfort with liberal policies on a state and national level.

“Liberals are a pretty homogeneous lot,” wrote Ellis and Stimson. “Conservatives, by contrast, are heterogeneous, a loose coalition of people with differing political worldviews, many of which are not at all conservative.” Building coalitions that include conservatives, moderates and libertarians is key to electoral victory, just as Reagan captured disaffected Democrats in Texas and Obama won 20% of conservatives in 2008.

The Tories are at a crossroads. Their strategy tends to focus on the short term, while appealing to the same pool of voters as they were a decade ago

Canadian federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney and Toronto mayor Rob Ford have employed symbolic conservatism when speaking about immigration. Kenney’s muscular rhetoric around “bogus” refugee applicants, combined with his retail politics in ethnic communities, have endeared him to many who seek acceptance by in mainstream Canadian society. When asked on television in 2010 about his stance on refugees, Ford said that, “We can’t even deal with 2.5 million people in the city. I think it’s more important that we take care of the people now before we start bringing in more.” The next day, Ford’s campaign office was overwhelmed with “messages of support — many from immigrants.”

The liberal establishment has been baffled by Ford’s ability to make racist remarks, yet consistently bank on ethnic communities. “In the last election, 80% of Ford support came from the inner suburbs, areas that have the highest concentration in the city of visible minorities,” wrote Jan Wong in Toronto Life. Wong regards Ford, with his track record of customer service and ability to attract support from many black voters, as a “political Robin Hood” with an “upraised middle finger” to the “entrenched downtown power structure.”

***

Conservatives are at a crossroads. Their strategy tends to focus on the short term — getting out the vote and attack ads — while appealing to the same pool of voters as they were a decade ago. “Instead of doing the hard work of persuading people, we’ve opted for the easy route,” Paul Ryan wrote. “Preaching to the choir isn’t working.”

But there is another way, one that champions vision, authenticity and discernment. “Politics is a personal enterprise,” wrote David Brooks in The New York Times, with great visions emerging “out of unique life experiences” and “by fully embodying a moment and a people.”

In his poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost — an acclaimed poet and conservative thinker — wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Which path will conservatives take?

National Post

Roland Mascarenhas is a management consultant based in Toronto. He can be found at rolandm.com.

Jeb Bush faces a dilemma as he ponders whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination for 2016: Can he mount a credible bid without betraying what he believes in?

Mr. Bush announced this week he plans to “actively explore” a run at the nomination. There are any number of obstacles to consider before he makes a decision. Are U.S. voters willing to seriously consider electing a third member of the Bush family to the White House? In particular, can he overcome the sour taste left by the two terms served by his brother, George W. Bush? Can he raise enough money in what has become a multi-billion-dollar contest that will consume the best part of the next two years? Will his business dealings — he has links to Lehman Brothers and offshore investors — doom his hopes?

But it says something about politics as a career, and the current state of the game in the U.S., that he must first decide whether it’s possible to run for president and still be honest.

The New York Times outlined Mr. Bush’s dilemma in a recent article. Though a convert to the Catholic church and conservative on taxes and some social issues dear to the heart of right-wing Republicans – he is opposed to both gay marriage and liberal abortion rights – he is considered a moderate within the party. He could count on the support of many within the party establishment, and hopes to run as a centrist appealing to a broad spectrum of voters. His supporters believe the party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, had a promising campaign but doomed his chances when he sought to placate the party’s right-wingers and tea party faction by abandoning his own centrist leanings in favour of more hardline policies.

(Houston Chronicle)How many Bushes can Americans handle?

Mr. Bush doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him. He has a decent record to run on. He was a popular governor of Florida and is viewed by many as the Bush who should have run in 2000. He’s considered smarter and more likeable than his older brother. If anything he may be tainted as too intellectual, with a taste for dry policy wonkery and political theorizing that can be a handicap in a campaign universe that goes in more for attack ads and 140-character Tweets, especially in the wake of a president who strikes many disillusioned Americans as too much the aloof Harvard law grad and ivory-tower professor and too little the tuned-in politician in touch with voter concerns.

Bush can count on support among the establishment wing of the party, which was often criticized as too right-wing and business-friendly until the tea party came along to redefine the terms. After a fierce tussle over the past four years, since the tea party first gained footing in the middle of President Barack Obama’s first term, the establishment has largely regained the key controls. There is no love lost between the tandem of House Speaker John Boehner and incoming Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell on one hand, and tea party diehards on the other. Mr. Boehner has been brazenly public in his dislike for the “no compromise” approach of tea partiers, which helped turned the most recent Congress into one of the least effective on record. And Mr. McConnell had to fight off a tea party challenge to hang onto his own seat.

GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty ImagesDel Potro, meanwhile, is starting to show the form he used to win his only major championship, the U.S. Open in 2009.

Yet the diehards retain considerable clout, and an ability to impact opinion beyond their numbers. Mr. Romney’s shift to the right came under intense pressure generated by a gruelling series of candidate debates that often left him looking isolated as a middle-of-the-road candidate surrounded by hardline rivals preaching simpler and more satisfying messages. He often looked uncomfortable espousing policies he seemed to have embraced more out of necessity than conviction. That in turned damaged his credibility with voters who found him untrustworthy as a result.

Mr. Bush, as the Times relates, fears he might be brought under the same pressures, especially in early primary contests where momentum is established, and where victories can be decided by a handful of voters. Does he risk losing tiny Iowa by refusing to bend to its social conservatives, putting his whole campaign at risk over a small faction in an otherwise unimportant state? Or does he make the first of what could turn into a steady stream of concessions in his principles? And can any candidate — no matter how determined — withstand the pressure of special interests, when those same special interests provide much of the money needed to run?

It’s a dilemma that faces politicians at all levels but has particular impact at the elevated reaches of presidential politics. Mr. Bush supports policies on immigration reform and education opposed by many conservatives. Compromising on those beliefs by watering down or abandoning those planks could turn him into just another politician more interested in getting elected than sticking to what he believes in. That in turn would undermine the whole point of running, since presidential politics already has plenty of people willing to trade away their principles in return for high office.

So that’s the quandary: can a candidate succeed despite a system rife with corrupting influences, or is the system itself already too far gone for hope?

The current resident of the White House ran on “hope and change,” and look where it got him.

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily roundup of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: Hillary Clinton has trouble talking about money.

Whenever she’s quizzed about the fortune she’s amassed with her husband, ex-U.S. president Bill Clinton — estimated at anywhere between $50-million and $100-million — she manages to put her foot in it.

Two weeks ago, she complained to ABC’s Diane Sawyer the couple had left the White House flat broke (which was true), but as Sawyer remarked they’ve managed to recover, partly by changing five times the U.S. median income for one speech.

The encounter took place in the Clintons’ $5-million house in Washington, described by The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker as being

appointed like an ambassador’s mansion. Mahogany antiques, vibrant paintings and Oriental rugs fill the rooms. French doors open onto an expertly manicured garden and a turquoise swimming pool, where Clinton recently posed for the cover of People magazine.

On her current book tour, the former secretary of state has travelled the country by private jet as she has for many of her speaking engagements since stepping down as secretary of state last year. Her fee is said to be upwards of $200,000 per speech; the exceptions tend to be black-tie charity galas, where she collects awards and catches up with friends such as designer Oscar de la Renta and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

On the weekend, in an interview in The Guardian Hillary was at it again. This time she suggested the Clintons weren’t “truly well off” because they paid ordinary income taxes — no offshore tax avoidance schemes unlike some she could mention. (Mitt Romney, were your ears burning?)

On hearing her claim, Alison Kosik, an anchor at CNN, burst into uncontrollable laughter on air. For the fact is, the Clintons are part of the 1% of uber-rich Americans. She lives a life cocooned from reality, never having to make herself a cup of coffee or reservations, and protected by the U.S. Secret Service.

The worry for Democrats is that imperial style will make her seem as out of touch as the Republican Romney appeared in the last U.S. presidential donnybrook — assuming she runs in 2016, of course.

Hillary’s gaffe was seized on by Vice-President Joe Biden, who may nurture his own presidential ambitions. At a summit on working families at the White House, he acknowledged he was wearing “a mildly expensive suit,” and makes “a lot of money as Vice-President,” but called himself “the poorest man in Congress.”

According to Alec McGillis at New Republic, money has always been the Clintons’ Achilles heel.

Even before [Hillary] Clinton’s clumsy answer to Sawyer, it wasn’t hard to predict that the Clintons’ relentless quest for great wealth in the years since they left the White House was going to loom as one of the main areas of scrutiny should Hillary make a second bid for president. Bill Clinton’s pursuit of riches, and the company he was keeping company in that endeavour, was an issue when she ran in 2008, and in the years since, Hillary herself has joined the chase, giving $200,000 and up speeches to Goldman Sachs (twice) as well as humbler venues such as the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (really.) The couple’s net worth is now estimated to be as high as $50-million and they spent last summer living in a $200,000 per month mansion on the Hamptons.

Bloomberg News’ Richard Rubin says the Clintons have long supported an estate tax to prevent the U.S. from being dominated by inherited wealth, but that doesn’t mean they want to pay it.

To reduce the tax pinch, the Clintons are using financial planning strategies befitting the top 1% of U.S. households in wealth. These moves, common among multimillionaires, will help shield some of their estate from the tax that now tops out at 40% of assets upon death. The Clintons created residence trusts in 2010 and shifted ownership of their New York house into them in 2011, according to federal financial disclosures and local property records.

Among the tax advantages of such trusts is that any appreciation in the house’s value can happen outside their taxable estate. The move could save the Clintons hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes, said David Scott Sloan, a partner at Holland & Knight LLP in Boston.

Peter Grier at The Christian Science Monitor has a diagnosis for what ails Ms. Clinton: SID.

As to why Clinton speaks so clumsily about her finances, we’ll go with the theory promulgated by Dan Drezner, Tufts University professor of international politics. He writes that she suffers from “Status-Income Disequilibrium” (SID). That’s what happens when everybody you hang out with has more money than you.

The Clintons’ social and professional circles now include lots of hedge fund managers and so forth, meaning they may now perceive themselves as not in the 1%. “And until the former secretary of state gets over her massive case of SID, these kind of gaffes will recur indefinitely,” Mr. Drezner writes.

When he was a candidate for president of the United States, Willard “Mitt” Romney appeared as a stately if somewhat detached figurehead of a bygone era. Standing six-foot-two with soft facial features, sunken eyes, Ken-doll hair and a bank account which could rival the GDP of some small countries, the Mormon former governor of a historically Democratic state was the perfect straw man for the GOP’s last grasp at the dream of an older, whiter America.

In MITT, the behind-the-scenes documentary about Romney’s two ill-fated attempts at becoming leader of the free world, which begins streaming on Netflix this Friday, the Republican doesn’t shy away from this reputation. Instead, he lets his actions, captured unmarred and in real time, lay out his argument for him. Shot in verite style by filmmaker Greg Whiteley — who was granted unprecedented access to the Romney family from 2006 to 2012 — MITT reveals Romney as a flawed but clear-eyed candidate; a warm, NPR-loving family man constantly battling to respect the ever-looming shadow of his father; a sharp political scholar too insecure to brandish his claws for fear of revealing too much, ever wincing in the face of the scorched-earth tactics that constantly threaten his structured belief system and family brain trust.

Related

Viewed chronologically, the documentary opens on Christmas Day 2006, as the Romney family gathers to discuss whether their patriarch should run for president. After a spirited back-and-forth, eldest son Tagg Romney omnisciently declares, “If you lose, the country may think of you as a laughingstock, but we’ll know the truth.”
It’s the perfect set-up for the film, which at times feels like an extended episode of HBO’s The Newsroom. And, Whiteley notes, it nearly never happened.

Alerted that the then-Massachusetts governor had caught a screening of his first film, New York Doll, Whiteley began persuing Romney as a subject, eventually convincing Tagg on the idea when a mutual friend brought them together for sushi. After much hand wringing, Tagg managed to convince his mother, but had yet to sway the eventual
candidate. Days before Christmas, Whiteley received a call from his man on the inside alerting him that, if he showed up in Utah, he may be able to get some footage, despite Mitt’s reservations.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLHxbemvpxY&w=620&h=379]

Recalling the phone call during a recent interview, Whiteley recreated his pitch to the Romneys: “Let’s just film your family talking about this, and if [Mitt] decides not to run, then I’ll just shelve the footage. We don’t do anything with it. And even if you do decide to run and you don’t want to film it, that’s fine, too.”

Six years later, his cameras stopped rolling.

With the consent of the family, and being persona non grata in strategy meetings (“The campaign staff would lay down the law all the time,” he says), the director crafted a film that is the polar contrast to similar in medias res political documentaries, such as The War Room. With little to no music, stylistic flourishes nor talking heads to give context, MITT has the aesthetic of home movies — giving it a voyeuristic air. “The general rule was I would keep on filming the family until they told me ‘No’ — and they never told me ‘No,’ ” Whiteley said.

Occasionally, family members address the camera, extrapolating as if breaking the fourth wall. “It was pretty easy for them to speak to me because, whenever there was a downtime or a lull, or whenever they would say something that I just didn’t quite understand, I would ask about it,” the director explained. “That would often times spur a discussion and often times that discussion would be into camera. Those moments were unusual; I don’t think they belie a familiarity. Over time, though, I think we just got to know one another. I don’t think I would ever presume to say that we’re friends; I guess I would say the Romneys are overly polite, so if some annoying camera guy is going to ask a question, they’ll answer it.”

The general rule was I would keep on filming the family until they told me ‘No’ — and they never told me ‘No’

This fluency also allowed Whiteley to capture the family — publically defined by their detachment — at their most raw: We see Mitt the neat freak, picking up trash moments before the 2012 election results pour in; the comical goof, ironing his cuffs while still wearing them; and Mitt the nagging pessimist, unwilling to draw confidence from his victory over the incumbent president in the first debate and deflecting to his father, whose position (“DAD”) he boldly writes on the top of his debate cheat sheet, as a constant reminder of who he believes really deserves to be in his place.

Of course, there is also prayer. “It’s impossible to film the Romneys for 12 hours and not get a prayer,” Whitley, who is also a Mormon, half-joked. “I was actually showing considerable restraint by only including two of them.”

But for every characteristic that MITT exposes, there are also glaring empty spaces. After tracking the 2008 Republican primary race, Whiteley skips over the 2012 equivalent, robbing the audience of the perverted glee that would surely welcome a peak behind the curtain of that no-holds-barred cage match. Instead, a montage ends abruptly with the infamous 47% speech and continues on until election night where, as the bad news starts pouring, we are shown, minute-by-minute, the seven signs of grief for everyone but the candidate, who appears almost keen to write his concession speech. The film ends as the Romneys return to their “normal life,” staring out into the sun while Secret Service pulls away from their gated community.

“This film is decidedly apolitical,” he said, in exposition as much as declaration. “It’s not attempting to persuade you to vote for Mitt Romney, it’s not attempting to excuse whatever it is he was trying to say with 47%, we’re just recording things how they happened and we’re trying to give the perspective of what was it like being a member of the family going through this particular experience.”

With some amusement, he noted that, over the six years he spent with the near-first family, he was surprised to find that what surprised him most wasn’t a hidden secret or the political process; rather, it was an idiosyncrasy of Mitt himself.

“He’s incredibly cheap and thrifty,” he said with a laugh. “He’s got a nice life and he’s got a couple of cars, but hanging out with him he doesn’t act like somebody, I guess I don’t know many multi-millionaires, but the image I get of how someone would live if they had that much money does not jibe with the person I saw.

If the trailer for the upcoming Mitt Romney documentary Mitt is any indication, the Netflix film isn’t going to paint Romney’s unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign in a particularly optimistic light.

While the trailer it only two minutes of what will be a feature-length film, from its first line — “I just can’t believe you’re going to lose” — to its final scene showing an obviously downtrodden Romney in conversation with his family, the clip is unrelenting in its sombre look at Romney’s year in the political spotlight.

Romney himself is brutally honest — with the cameras and with himself — throughout, more begrudgingly accepting of his fate than in denial of it. Where there could be self-aggrandisement and bravado in the face of defeat there is a quiet acknowledgement of failure: Romney asks his family what he should put in his concession speech moments before delivering it, for instance, and says of his reputation as a flip-flopper that “I think I’m a flawed candidate.”

The film, directed by Greg Whiteley and produced by Oscar-winner Seth Gordon, will be released on Netflix on Jan. 24. Watch the trailer below:

Milwaukee — In 2011, tens of thousands of government employees and others, enraged by Governor Scott Walker’s determination to break the ruinously expensive and paralyzing grip that government workers’ unions had on Wisconsin, took over the capitol building in Madison. With chanting, screaming and singing supplemented by bullhorns, bagpipes and drum circles, their cacophony shook the building that the squalor of their occupation made malodorous. They spat on Republican legislators and urinated on Walker’s office door. They shouted, “This is what democracy looks like!”

When they and Democratic legislators failed to prevent passage of Act 10, they tried to defeat — with a scurrilous smear campaign that backfired — an elected state Supreme Court justice. They hoped that changing the court’s composition would get Walker’s reforms overturned. When this failed, they tried to capture the state Senate by recalling six Republican senators. When this failed, they tried to recall Walker. On the night that failed — he won with a larger margin than he had received when elected 19 months earlier — he resisted the temptation to proclaim, “This is what democracy looks like!”

Walker recounts these events in Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge. Most books by incumbent politicians are not worth the paper they never should have been written on. If, however, enough voters read Walker’s nonfiction thriller, it will make him a — perhaps the — leading candidate for his party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Act 10 required government workers to contribute 5.8% of their salaries to their pensions (hitherto, most paid nothing) and to pay 12.8% of their health care premiums (up from 6% but still just half of what the average federal worker pays). Both percentages are well below the private-sector average. By limiting collective bargaining to base wages, Act 10 freed school districts to hire and fire teachers based on merit, and to save many millions of dollars by buying teachers’ health insurance in the competitive market rather than from an entity run by the teachers’ union. Restricting collective bargaining to wages ended the sort of absurd rules for overtime compensation that made a bus driver Madison’s highest paid public employee.

Act 10’s dynamite, however, was the provision ending the state’s compulsory collection of union dues — sometimes as high as $1,400 per year — that fund union contributions to Democrats. Barack Obama and his national labour allies made Wisconsin a battleground because they knew that when Indiana made paying union dues optional, 90% of state employees quit paying, and similar measures produced similar results in Washington, Colorado and Utah.

Walker has long experience in the furnace of resistance to the looting of public funds by the public’s employees. He was elected chief executive of heavily Democratic Milwaukee County after his predecessor collaborated with other officials in rewriting pension rules in a way that, if he had been re-elected instead of resigning, would have given him a lump-sum payment of $2.3-million and $136,000 a year for life.

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesUnion members protest inside the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 4, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin.

To fight the recall — during which opponents disrupted Walker’s appearance at a Special Olympics event, and squeezed Super Glue into the locks of a school he was to visit — Walker raised more than $30-million, assembling a nationwide network of conservative donors that could come in handy if he is re-elected next year. Having become the first U.S. governor to survive a recall election, he is today serene as America’s first governor to be, in effect, elected twice to a first term. When he seeks a second term, his probable opponent will be a wealthy opponent who says her only promise is to not make promises. This is her attempt to cope with an awkward fact: She will either infuriate her party’s liberal base or alarm a majority of voters by promising either to preserve or repeal Act 10.

Walker is politely scathing — a neat trick — of Mitt Romney’s campaign, especially of Romney’s statement that, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” because “we have a very ample safety net.” The imperative, Walker says, is to “help them escape the safety net.”

“Outside the Washington beltway,” he says pointedly, “big-government liberals are on the ropes.” No incumbent Republican governor has lost a general election since 2007. Since 2008, the number of Republican governors has increased from 21 to 30, just four short of the party’s all-time high reached in the 1920s. He thinks Republican governors are in tune with the nation. If re-elected, he probably will test that theory.

At a private fundraiser in May 2012, Romney told a group of Republicans that he didn’t care about the votes of 47% of Americans.

“There are 47% of people who are with [Obama], who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, you-name-it,” Romney said.

A barman from the catering company working at the fundraiser filmed the remarks and leaked them to Mother Jones magazine, causing an uproar among Republicans and Democrats alike.

“That’s just the nature of politics and you have to get over it and live with it,” Romney said in the interview.

They’re old, white, narrow-minded, intolerant, bigoted and outdated, according to the report.

“We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people,” the report says. “But devastatingly, we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

What that means is that they’re very good at reinforcing the biases of the most cranky and codgerly of their supporters, but lousy at attracting anyone outside that limited faction of hardliners. Their message is: if you’re not already one of us, take a hike. Rather than make an effort to win over voters outside its core community – i.e. women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, the non-evangelical or anyone worried about their income, pension or health – they spend their time reassuring themselves they don’t need people like that. Basically, you already have to be a Republican to be attractive to the Republicans.

That this should come as news to the party is perhaps the biggest news. Pundits filled column after column making the same points during the election, generally to be derided by the GOP as a pack of soft-brained left-wing weenies from the MSM. The party could have saved the past four months of anal introspection if it had spent a few moments reading the newspapers any time in the year or so leading to the vote. Instead, it denounced critics – even sympathetic ones – as heretics. Long-time supporters like David Frum were banished for offering even the mildest of criticisms. All anyone had to do to spot the problem within the party was to watch the endless series of candidate debates, in which everyone from gun-happy yahoos to ill-informed pizza executives was given a national platform to identify Republicanism with the smallest and most restrictive of minds. Anyone tempted to vote Republican had to accept that this was a party that still thinks gaydom can be “cured”.

Anyone tempted to vote Republican had to accept that this was a party that still thinks gaydom can be “cured”.

Now the party executive wants to do something about it, and is proposing a $10-million public relations campaign to alter public perceptions. Maybe that will work, though it sounds a lot like damage control after the oil has already soiled the beaches. The challenge still facing the party is the dominance it has allowed its least attractive elements: the Tea Party members who think Mitt Romney’s biggest problem was that he wasn’t right-wing enough. Already they’re attacking the report itself as a sell-out, another plot by the weak-willed to turn the party into “Democrat Lite.” The solution, they argue, is better communication and a stronger line: more Americans would embrace the party’s principles if only they were explained more skilfully.

I doubt it. Loser parties have been making that claim for decades. The problem for the GOP is that it is increasingly treated as a front for the Tea Party. In seeking reaction to the report, the Democrat-friendly New York Times went straight to the nearest Tea Partiers, the better to illustrate their intransigence. Rather than recognize its most ideological faction for what it is, the faction is being equated with the party. Until other conservatives accept that fact, and do something to change it, they can commission all the studies they want, but they won’t make any progress. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, they’ve always had the ability to repair the situation. All they have to do is recognize the fact and act on it.

A Republican National Committee report says the party should change the way it recruits candidates, talks to voters, uses technology, raises money and reaches out to minorities in an effort to appeal to a broader base of voters and win elections.

Republicans have become too insular, frequently sound like bookkeepers and need to be more inclusive in dealing with those who disagree with the party platform on abortion rights and same-sex marriage, the report, released today, says. Party leaders commissioned it after 2012 election losses spotlighted demographic and technological shortfalls with Democrats.

“There’s no one reason we lost,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, 41, said this morning at the National Press Club in Washington. “Our message was weak, our ground game was insufficient, we weren’t inclusive, we were behind in both data and digital, and our primary and debate process needed improvement.”

The perception that we’re the party of the rich unfortunately continues to grow

He made the comments immediately after declaring Monday “Day One” of the party’s push to change perceptions the audit uncovered – that the GOP is “narrow minded,” “out of touch” and “stuffy old men.”

“The perception that we’re the party of the rich unfortunately continues to grow,” Priebus said as he released the report, drawn up by panelists with strong ties to “big-tent” Republicans who have long favored more inclusive policies opposed by ideological purists.

Priebus said the RNC would spend $10 million this year, an unprecedented amount in a non-election year, to hire hundreds of workers to network with, court and register minority voters.

“We’ve never put this many paid boots on the ground this early in an off year,” he said. “We’ve also never been this dedicated to working at the community level, to win minority votes, household to household.”

Philosophical Divisions

Some of the report’s proposed mechanical changes could be accomplished with adequate funding; those that call for a philosophical pivot — becoming more accepting of those who disagree with the party’s positions — will be harder to enforce. Candidates straying from Republican doctrine in recent years have been penalized by the party’s base in elections.

“Our standard should not be universal purity,” Sally Bradshaw, one of the report’s authors and a longtime consultant to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, said at a briefing today.

The report, which includes more than 200 recommendations and runs almost 100 pages, is often blunt.

“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” it says. “We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

The report calls for the party to be more inclusive, or risk becoming further marginalized.

“When it comes to social issues, the party must in fact and deed be inclusive and welcoming,” the report says. “If we are not, we will limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.”

Priebus said party leaders need to “constantly remind everybody” to treat all, including gays and minorities, with dignity and respect. The party would continue to support Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who last week said he would back same-sex marriage after revealing that his son is gay, he said.

“It’s his decision,” Priebus said. “I support him having that opinion.”

Priebus also made clear he doesn’t expect any of the party’s policy positions to change.

“Our policies are sound,” he said. “But I think that, in many ways, the way that we communicate can be a real problem.”

The report calls for a shorter primary campaign season and no more than a dozen debates during that period, with the first no earlier than Sept. 1, 2015. It also says the party should consider penalizing candidates through the loss of convention delegates if they don’t abide by the party’s debate structure.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty ImagesU.S. Sen. Rob Portman announced on March 14 that he has reversed his stance against same-sex marriage because his son, Will Portman, is gay.

Female Voters

On wooing more female voters, the report calls for the creation of a list of surrogates based on their policy and political expertise and calls on the RNC’s media team to focus on “booking more women on TV on behalf of the party and be given metrics to ensure that we aren’t just using the same old talking heads.”

The party also needs to “educate Republicans on the importance of developing and tailoring a message that is non- inflammatory and inclusive to all,” the report says.

On immigration, the report calls on the party to “embrace and champion comprehensive” changes.

“If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only,” it says. “Comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.”

Younger Voters

To court younger voters, the report says Republican leaders need to more actively participate in interviews on the programs that they watch. It also calls for all party digital and data efforts to have the young voter as a major focus.

To match the Democrats’ advantage in technology, the RNC should hire a chief technology and digital officer by May 1, the report says.

It also calls for the creation of a data platform for the party that would be accessible to all qualified Republican organizations and campaigns so they can share information. Priebus said the RNC plans to open a field office in Silicon Valley to boost its ties to the technology development community.

The report also recommends a more populist tone.

“We have to blow the whistle at corporate malfeasance and attack corporate welfare,” it says. “We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed. We should speak out when CEOs receive tens of millions of dollars in retirement packages but middle-class workers have not had a meaningful raise in years.”

Alex Wong/Getty ImagesFormer Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney acknowledges the crowd during the second day of the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 15 in National Harbor, Maryland.

Electoral Success

Formally known as the Growth and Opportunity Project, the effort was initiated by Priebus on Dec. 10 as a way to study how Republicans can find more electoral success — from the local level to Congress and the presidency.

The study group’s other members included Henry Barbour, nephew of former Mississippi governor and RNC chairman Haley Barbour; Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under President George W. Bush; and RNC members Zori Fonalledas of Puerto Rico and Glenn McCall of South Carolina.

Priebus also said he wants the party’s national convention, typically held in late August or early September in presidential election years, moved to June or July. He argued that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was hampered by his inability to tap funds slated for the general election to defend himself against Democratic attacks ahead of a late August convention.

Core Message

Before any of the proposed fixes can take full effect, Republican leaders may face their internal fissures that have led to the nomination of candidates viewed by independent voters as too extreme.

Some Republicans unhappy with losses in 2012 are pushing for a new core message and moderation on social issues and views on how to deal with undocumented immigrants, while others are arguing the party needs to stick to principles.

That tension was on display this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, where most of the speakers called on the party to stick to its core beliefs and there was no indication that the party base is willing to change the type of candidates it backs.

Alex Wong/Getty ImagesPresident Barack Obama delivers remarks during a Women’s History Month Reception in the East Room of the White House on Monday in Washington, DC.

Exit Polls

Exit polls of voters in the Nov. 6 election showed President Barack Obama dominating Romney among single women, Hispanics, blacks and younger voters en route to carrying eight of the nine states both camps viewed as the most competitive. Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, the exit polls showed. That translated to a 44-percentage-point advantage over Romney, who won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote — down from 31 percent for the party’s presidential ticket in 2008, 44 percent in 2004 and 35 percent in 2000.

Blunting those Democratic advantages is critical for Republicans: Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority bloc of voters, and the party risks losing much of an entire generation if they can’t appeal to younger voters.

One area not directly addressed by the study group is how the party goes about selecting its candidates for statewide races in the era of the anti-tax Tea Party movement.

Losses by Tea Party-backed U.S. Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana who drew controversy with comments about rape and pregnancy cost Republicans seats that they were poised to win a year before the election. When combined with similar defeats in 2010, some Republicans have complained that the primary fights that led to Democratic victories prevented them from gaining control of the Senate.

“We don’t pick winners and losers in primaries,” Priebus said. “It’s a business that we’re not in.”

OXON HILL, Md. — Republican Mitt Romney apologized for losing the presidential election as he returned to the national stage on Friday, promising to work in a diminished role alongside conservative activists to help strengthen the GOP.

“Each of us in our own way will have to step up and meet our responsibility,” Romney told a crowded ballroom at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day summit for activists in suburban Washington.

“I am sorry that I will not be your president,” Romney said, taking the stage for the first time since last fall’s election loss. “But I will be your co-worker, and I will work shoulder-to-shoulder alongside you.”

Romney’s conservative credentials were sometimes questioned during his presidential campaign, but he was greeted with a roaring ovation and interrupted by applause several times during his brief remarks. Advisers said his appearance was designed to thank conservatives for backing his candidacy.

Romney won the conference’s straw poll one year ago, when he described himself as “severely conservative.”

He did not repeat that phrase on Friday, but he did borrow heavily from his campaign trail speech. Romney referred to the same furniture upholsterer and truck driver he cited almost daily as he crisscrossed the country last year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr3OUt4kLp4&w=640&h=360]

Romney is not expected to play a leading role in the future of the Republican Party, but he said, “It’s up to us to make sure that we learn from our mistakes, and my mistakes.”

He encouraged conservatives to study the successes of the nation’s 30 Republican governors and praised the “clear and convincing voice” of his former running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who spoke in the same ballroom earlier in the day.

We may not have carried on Nov. 7, but we have not lost the country we love, and we have not lost our way

“Of course, I left the race disappointed that I didn’t win,” Romney said. “But I also left honored and humbled to have represented the values we believe in and to speak for so many good and decent people.”

He also struck the same optimistic tone of his campaign’s final weeks.

“I utterly reject pessimism,” Romney said. “We may not have carried on Nov. 7, but we have not lost the country we love, and we have not lost our way.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/15/learn-from-my-mistakes-romney-apologizes-to-conservatives-for-losing-election-at-cpac/feed/1stdMitt Romney acknowledges the crowd after he was introduced by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley during the second day of the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference Friday.Barman who ruined Mitt Romney’s campaign with 47% video reveals why: Republican wasn’t nice to staffhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/14/barman-who-ruined-mitt-romneys-campaign-with-47-video-reveals-why-republican-wasnt-nice-to-staff/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/14/barman-who-ruined-mitt-romneys-campaign-with-47-video-reveals-why-republican-wasnt-nice-to-staff/#commentsThu, 14 Mar 2013 13:06:39 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=279745

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney might have avoided the leaking of his disastrous “47%” speech during last year’s election if he had followed the example of former president Bill Clinton and been nicer to the staff, it was said Wednesday.

Barman Scott Prouty who secretly filmed Mr. Romney’s speech at a fund-raising event in Florida last May said he took his camera in the hope of snatching a quick photograph with the potential future US president.

But Mr. Romney – unlike Bill Clinton, who at a previous dinner had taken the trouble to go backstage to thank the chefs, pose for photographs and sign autographs with waiters and bar staff – was too busy to stop and departed without making a courtesy call.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOX_GhdUKbk&w=620&h=465]

The unnamed employee for a catering company had placed his camera on the bar and recorded the now-infamous speech that arguably did more to determine Mr. Romney’s electoral fortunes than anything the former Republican candidate ever said in public.

“I felt it was a civic duty. I couldn’t sleep after I watched it,” Prouty told the Huffington Post yesterday, hours before he was due to reveal his identity in an interview with the MSNBC television channel last night. “I felt like I had a duty to expose it.”

He said it was a “tough” decision. “I debated for a little while but in the end, I really felt like it had to be put out,” he said. “I felt I owed it to the people who couldn’t afford to be there themselves to hear what he [Romney] really thought.”

ScreenshotScott Prouty appeared on MSNBC's 'The Ed Show' Wednesday.

Mr. Romney, who made his $250 million fortune as the founder of Bain Capital, never managed to live down the remarks, despite repeated protests that they did not reflect his true beliefs or his record of service as a devout Mormon. At the time, Mr Romney told a room full of wealthy donors: “There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what… who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims.

“These are people who pay no income tax…. and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUQ-j2sOA7c&w=620&h=379]

When the recording was leaked to the liberal Mother Jones magazine via a grandson of former president Jimmy Carter it caused an instant storm, with jubilant Democrats saying it proved their contention that Mr Romney, a multi-millionaire management consultant, was an incorrigible elitist.

This month, in his first interview since losing last November’s election, Mr. Romney admitted that the remarks had done “real damage” to his campaign but repeated that he did not see the world as a place divided into “makers and takers”, as some economic Conservatives liked to describe it.

Mr. Romney has kept a low profile since the election, but will return to the Republican fold this week when he delivers a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual jamboree for grass-roots Republicanism. The event has highlighted divisions within the party over what lessons must be learnt from the 2012 defeat when the Republicans failed to attract ethnic minorities, women and younger voters, raising fundamental questions about the party’s long-term electability.

The factional battles raging in the party were exemplified by the decision by CPAC organisers to exclude Chris Christie from the convention. Mr. Christie is the popular Republican governor of New Jersey who is being tipped as a possible presidential candidate in 2016 but was not invited because he was seen as insufficiently conservative.

WASHINGTON — The bartender working the private fundraiser where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his comments about “47%” of Americans says he didn’t make the secret recording as a political partisan.

In his first public interview, Scott Prouty tells MSNBC’s Ed Schultz that he lost sleep and struggled for weeks before deciding to release the recording to the magazine Mother Jones. But Prouty says he thought it was important that people heard Romney and knew what he was really thinking.

In the video, Romney tells donors paying $50,000 apiece that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government, see themselves as victims and believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.

Romney’s critics used the video to argue that he was out of touch with average Americans.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/13/man-behind-47-video-that-did-in-mitt-romney-reveals-himself-for-the-first-time/feed/0stdMitt Romney says it was a 'slow recognition' he wasn't going to win in first major interview since electionhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/03/mitt-romney-says-it-was-a-slow-recognition-he-wasnt-going-to-win-in-first-major-interview-since-election/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/03/mitt-romney-says-it-was-a-slow-recognition-he-wasnt-going-to-win-in-first-major-interview-since-election/#commentsSun, 03 Mar 2013 16:31:28 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=275719

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney says his heart told him he was going to win the presidency, but when early results came in on election night, he knew it was not to be.

The Republican nominee told Fox News Sunday that he knew his campaign was in trouble when exit polls suggested a close race in Florida. Romney thought he’d win the state solidly.

President Barack Obama ended up taking Florida and won the election by a wide margin in the electoral vote allocated in state-by-state contests.

Romney said there was “a slow recognition” at that time that Obama would win — and the race soon was over when Obama carried Ohio.

Romney said the loss hit hard and was emotional. Ann Romney said she cried.

Related

The interview, which was taped Thursday and aired Sunday, was one of the first major public appearances by the Romneys since the Nov. 6 election. The Romneys are living in Southern California now.

The former Massachusetts governor acknowledged mistakes in the campaign and flaws in his candidacy.

But he joked that he did better in his second run for the White House than he did the first time around — when he lost the 2008 nomination to Arizona Sen. John McCain, who went on to lose to Obama.

He said he won’t get a third crack at it.

Romney said his campaign didn’t do a good job connecting with minority voters, and that Republicans must do a better job in appealing to African-Americans and Hispanics. Obama won more than 90% of the black vote and about 70% of the Hispanic vote.

Romney said his campaign also underestimated the appeal of Obama’s new health care law to low-income voters.

But he knows that because he lost the race, it’s hard to tell Republicans to listen now to what he has to say about how to improve the party’s message.

Romney, who has kept a low profile since the election, said “you move on” from the disappointment and that “I don’t spend my life looking back.”

Ann Romney said that after the election she was approached by TV’s Dancing with the Stars, but declined to join the cast.

She said she’ll be turning 64 soon and “I’m not really as flexible as I should be.”

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: After years of deep division, welcome hints of bipartisanship are breaking out in Washington.

Surprisingly, it’s on the hot potato topic of immigration, a subject on which almost everyone has a view. There have been at least five attempts to clean up the mess in recent years and give some hope to the millions of illegal immigrants. Why does it make sense, for example, to spend money educating them, then deny them jobs because they have no way of getting the necessary documents?

Now, eight U.S. senators, Republican and Democrat, have put forward a raft of proposals.

Their stick and carrot document includes clauses to secure the border and grant paths to citizenship for millions of undocumented migrants already in the U.S. Many of the suggested changes are not new — the difference is the political climate. Republicans realize they have to act to shore up support after the November debacle.

Hispanics, the fastest-growing segment of the population, voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, despite his inaction on immigration: he got 71% of their vote in contrast to the 27% who supported the Republican Mitt Romney.

Some GOP members are taking heed, among them an erstwhile presidential nominee and immigration flip-flopper, says the Canadian Press’s Lee-Anne Goodman.

Three years ago, as mid-term congressional elections approached in the United States, John McCain blamed home invasions and murders in the American southwest on illegal immigrants, urging federal officials to build “the danged fence” to keep them out.
Apparently nervous about a primary challenge from an anti-immigration Tea Party candidate eying his job, McCain’s sudden hard line represented a dramatic turnaround from the Arizona senator’s record in Congress, where he championed unsuccessful immigration reform bills in 2007. [He] is now serving as one of the Republicans’ most vocal proponents for a sweeping immigration overhaul.

In an editorial, the Chicago Sun-Timeshails the newest initiative, but fears it could suffer the fate of previous proposals.

After years of going nowhere, immigration reform has shot to the top of the Washington agenda. Finally, there is a serious chance that Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — will agree on a realistic path to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants and hammer out a practical plan to secure the nation’s southern border.Let’s get it done.
Before uncompromising extremists can trash up the debate.

The New York Times points out it will still bel no slam-dunk to become a U.S. citizen.

The citizenship path, as outlined in the memo, won’t be easy or short. The plan creates a new “probationary legal status” (not citizenship or permanent residency) for the undocumented, which would allow them to live and work legally in this country, provided they pass criminal background checks and pay back taxes and fines. The road to citizenship, however, will stay closed until all proposed enforcement measures are completed, the borders are pronounced secure and all existing immigration backlogs are cleared.
It’s easy to be skeptical, because the list of conditions is long. Legal immigrants have been languishing for decades in the existing system; without a concerted effort to clear backlogs, many of the 11 million may not have enough lifetimes to complete the citizenship path.

Writing at Townhall, Rachel Marsden wonders if excessive regulation is already part of the problem.

Does anyone ever ask WHY there are so many illegal immigrants in America? While it’s understandable that foreign citizens want to come to America for the great opportunities, why do so many of them insist on doing it illegally? Maybe — and I speak from personal experience — it’s because the system has become so complex that only a highly paid immigration lawyer or consultant can navigate it.
Why isn’t there anything in this new proposal (or anywhere else) acknowledging that one of the reasons why people circumvent proper procedure and instead take their chances by overstaying a visitor’s visa or jumping the border is because doing things legally is cost-prohibitive and far too complex? What should be just a process has grown into an entire industry.

An op-ed piece in the Palm Beach Post suggests the U.S. should look north of the border for fresh ideas.

Canada has become a diverse country, as anyone who visits, say, Toronto, could see. But Canada also worries about border security. Anyone who enters the country illegally must serve a year in prison. The idea is to encourage people to immigrate legally.
In the United States, entering illegally or overstaying a visa is a misdemeanor and carries a six-month sentence. It’s hardly a priority for law enforcement. Any stepped-up sentence would have to apply only to those who came after Congress acted, of course, but such a measure could help the wider bill pass by getting support from those opposed to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here.

compiled by Araminta Wordsworthawordsworth@nationalpost.com

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/30/u-s-shows-new-willingness-to-solve-immigration-conundrum/feed/0stdImmigrants Become Naturalized US Citizens At Ceremony In New JerseyRobert Fulford: 2012, the year when money somehow became unpopularhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/28/robert-fulford-2012-the-year-when-money-somehow-became-unpopular/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/28/robert-fulford-2012-the-year-when-money-somehow-became-unpopular/#commentsSat, 29 Dec 2012 01:08:07 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=102197

The power of money was the resounding theme of public debate in 2012. Mitt Romney was the first presidential candidate of a major party who had made a fortune. Then he became the first presidential candidate defeated by his opponent’s relentless questions about his money. Democrats and their supporters in American journalism felt that there was something fishy about private equity funds like Bain Capital and something even fishier about rich people claiming deductions allowed by the tax code.

Romney thought business experience made him a potentially good president. Democrats thought it made him chronically unsuitable. Romney learned, much too late, that he had no words to convince voters that his financial accomplishments were admirable and beneficial. But then, capitalism has never developed a language to legitimize itself. In 2012 it became routine to say that 1% of citizens have the money and the other 99% are impoverished. Just about everybody now believes that economic inequality has reached previously unknown levels — and that capitalism is at fault.

This is mostly folk wisdom. I prefer economists like Deirdre McCloskey of the University of Illinois, who argue, correctly, that “The poor have benefited the most from capitalism.” But those who dislike capitalism can dismiss that truth as ideologically biassed.

Scholars supported the spirit of 2012 with two much-discussed books, one American and one British. In the American book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, Michael Sandel condemns the intrusion of corporations where they don’t belong — hospitals, prisons, public schools. The British authors, historian Robert Skidelsky and his philosopher son, Edward, make “an argument against insatiability” in How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life. Capitalism makes its adherents insatiable; people who acquire a billion immediately want another one.

Sandel believes business has exceeded its “moral limits” but he avoids defining them and instead provides flagrant examples of wretched excess. He tells us that in one California prison $82 a night buys you a cell upgrade and in certain hospitals in China appointments with doctors are sold like tickets to a football game. There’s even scalping.

He pours contempt on the promiscuous sale to the rich of naming rights in public institutions, which probably makes it uncomfortable for him to serve at Harvard as “Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government,” Bass being a Fort Worth oil billionaire who has a supersonic corporate jet in development.

Both Sandel and the Skidelskys mention that capitalism greatly improves material conditions but they admit it grudgingly, as if under torture. In neither book does trade of any kind appear noble, like university teaching. It is a necessary evil if it is in fact necessary at all.

Sandel doesn’t know how to limit capitalist excesses but hopes someone will think of something. The Skidelskys have a dream: Future governments will pay everyone an annual income and everyone will work 15 hours a week, devoting their leisure to self-fulfillment.

Enemies of capitalism can count on movies and television to depict businessmen almost exclusively as villains. In 2012 a powerful documentary film, Lauren Greenfield’s The Queen of Versailles, has exceeded all previous efforts in that direction. Its real-life characters are an Orlando billionaire, David Siegel, his ditsy third wife, Jackie, and their seven children. Together they illustrate in grotesque and appalling detail the worst nightmares that the word “capitalism” evokes in those who hate it. Father plots to expand his empire, mother incessantly shops, the children are both ignored and spoiled. All fly by private jet.

When we meet them they are building the most expensive private house in the U.S., budgeted at $100-million. Why do that? “Because I can,” answers Siegel. But the house is only a shell when the recession of 2008 cripples Siegel’s empire of time-share resorts and abruptly reduces the couple to gilded poverty.

Siegel blames the banks for encouraging him to build scores of resorts with low-interest loans and tiny down payments. The film has already shown us that Siegel has built his paper fortune by selling properties with below-prime mortgages to people unlikely to meet the payments, the basis of the mortgage scandal.

When we last see them David has been transformed from a vibrant philanthropist into a bitter old grump, furious because the family refuses to save power by turning off unnecessary lights. Most of the nannies and maids have been fired and the children are playing on floors where dog urine forms little pools. Jackie is still furiously shopping. Capitalism is still in trouble.